Banks were behind the crisis that has inflicted financial pain on millions of Britons. And now they’re meting out a little more misery in less visible ways.

In the early days, the victims were obvious as people lost their jobs and wages fell. Then came the pain for savers, those who had done the right thing and put money aside to fund their futures.

The full armoury of policy was assembled to help borrowers – with mass money printing and rock-bottom interest rates – but hurt savers.

Banks have been rightly lambasted for their reckless behaviour and role in bringing all this about. But herein lies the problem. While it’s right they respond to that criticism and set their house in order, a widespread overreaction is now having secondary detrimental effects on consumers.

The compliance departments are in overdrive, advising board directors to run from any area of financial services with even the faintest potential for mis-selling or where risks were high.

Banks deserted financial advice and turned their back on first-time buyers.

The Daily Telegraph Your Money’s front page tomorrow demonstrates another area where responsible customers are being abandoned by the industry through no fault of their own.

Reader David Carlyle, 71, carefully structured and managed his finances for his retirement. His existing interest-only mortgage was at the heart of this strategy. But his lender, Barclays-Woolwich, has made that untenable and he must rip up his plans.

It wasn’t always like this. A decade ago, lenders loved interest-only and were still eagerly selling Isa mortgages, where you save each month to build a pot that will clear the loan after 25 years. There were, of course, kickbacks on these sales. Nationwide was very keen for me to take one when I bought my first home in 2001.

Today, far fewer banks or building societies will consider offering interest-only loans. Some of the biggest players have abandoned the market, including Nationwide and RBS-NatWest.

Others go through a charade of lending but with terms so onerous that few can borrow.

Halifax, for instance, demands interest-only borrowers using Isas as the savings vehicle to repay the mortgage must have a starting minimum of £50,000. Those who choose to clear the mortgage with pension savings must have a starting pot of £1m regardless of the size of the mortgage.

The result is that remaining lenders feel little competition and offer poor rates.

Regulators are concerned about the behaviour of banks. Last week the Financial Conduct Authority published guidelines on treating interest-only customers fairly.

Banks are wrong to abandon these borrowers, and not just ethically. The chief financial ombudsman, who decides what is and isn’t mis-selling, has said interest-only was not a big mis-selling scandal.

Lenders are ignoring this signal. So while the Government’s policies, such as Help to Buy, are assisting many on to the property ladder (by switching the risk on to taxpayers) the rungs are being removed for millions of holders of interest-only mortgages.